Water is fundamental for life on earth, and clean water is a necessity for everyone. Access to clean water is necessary for continuity of a healthy life. Unfortunately, getting clean water is a hardship many people still face. Although access to potable water has improved in the last hundred years, communities in developing countries are still affected by unhygienic drinking water. About 1.1 billion people in developing countries struggle with the challenge of cleaning contaminated water in their communities [1]. Additionally, 1.4 million children die from diarrhea annually [1]. Many of these unfortunate deaths could be prevented by increasing access to safe drinking water, but the process of cleaning contaminated water is sometimes difficult and costly.
Water is also essential in industries such as electronics, pharmaceuticals, and food [2]. Contaminants in water can be chemical or biological, either naturally occurring in the environment or man-made. To help maintain global sustainability of human health and welfare, we must develop ways to filter and clean our existing water resources. Of particular interest is the filtration of environmental contaminants with inexpensive, non-toxic, natural materials.
Since ancient times, people have tried different methods of cleaning water. It has always been important to remove the smell, taste, turbidity, metals, and pathogens that can exist in water [3]. Some of the methods to reduce contamination in water include sedimentation, chemical treatment, and filtration.
Sedimentation is a method of waiting for the particles in water to settle to the bottom by means of gravity and then removing the clean supernatant water. While this method has been used for thousands of years and is inexpensive, it is incapable of removing small microbes and metals that remain in the water [3].
Chemical treatment is also used to kill off viruses and bacteria living in water. The chemicals most widely used are chlorine and iodine. While these chemicals are easy to come by, getting the exact dosage to disinfect can be difficult. In addition, these chemicals are poisonous and adding too much in drinking water can cause illnesses, organ damage, and even death [4].
Filtration is commonly used in conjunction with sedimentation and chemical treatments [3]. Water filtration by definition means to sift out the impurities found in water. The size of the filtering pore is important to determine the size of particles that can be separated. Traditionally, filters can be made of sand, gravel, and charcoal. Newer filtering methods are made from materials including ceramics and carbon. Many existing nanofiber meshes are made up of non-organic materials that are not biodegradable.